If a rumored music service wasn’t enough to push Twitter into the territory media, now the company might be trying to get TV content playing through its service.
The social network is close to making partnerships with cable network company Viacom (MTV, Comedy Central, Spike) and major media company Comcast (NBCUniversal) to bring more high-quality videos to the service, along with commercials, according to a Bloomberg report that cites anonymous people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg’s sources indicate that the partnership would allow TV video content to play on Twitter, and Twitter would then split the revenue on any ads. I’m guessing this means Twitter would give you the option of playing a clip from, say, The Daily Show within your Twitter stream, and then play an ad either before or after the video starts. Perhaps those clips could even be featured within sponsored tweets that appear before search results and such.
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If true, this would be an interesting move for Twitter, and one that shows how much it wants a piece of the lucrative television advertising market. But this isn’t the first time the company has shown an interest in getting closer to the TV industry. Twitter purchased social TV analytics platform Bluefin Labs back in February, and prior to that it signed an agreement to work with Nielsen on a standardized form of social TV ratings. Twitter has also stacked its board of directors and employee roster with plenty of influential media executives.
We’re reaching out to Twitter for more information about its possible dealings with Viacom and Comcast and will update this post with any new information.
